


this is me standing up

by deniigiq



Category: Daredevil (TV), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, References to Illness, and depression, foggy has anxiety, matt has the flu, team red runs interference, the two lead to some misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 06:49:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13518789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: “Oh. His name’s Matt. Well that’s boring. I was hoping for like an Estefan, but whatever. Anyways, you should knock again. He’s ignoring me.”What. The fuck.“Who are you?” he tried, arm raised to knock again.But the door was ripped open. And there was Matt looking like fried shit and shirtless? Foggy decided to just let this day be shit.





	this is me standing up

**Author's Note:**

> References to suicide. Slow start. 
> 
> Foggy has anxiety and thinks that Matt is trying to guilt him into forgiving him by hiding away forever. Matt is actually just depressed and caught a monster flu. Peter is trying his best to keep it together when all the adults in his life are pretty shit at helping him cope with Superhero things. Don't worry though, everything is fine.

Foggy was not an idiot and he could see that Matt was slowly, patiently killing himself. Not the romantic kind either, where the best-friend-turned-love-interest flies onto the scene, declares their undying love for the suicidal protagonist, and all mental health issues float away through a montage of hospital scenes and wistful smiles.

No.

Matt’s chosen poison was something else. It was hard to describe. It was hard to conceptualize. Matt’s particular poison felt intentional at times, but completely out of control at others. He called it a Devil. Foggy didn’t know what to call it. Foggy also didn’t know whether he was being manipulated or not. And his stomach dropped when he realized that Matt probably didn’t know either. That was terrifying, and that’s when Foggy realized that Matt was slowly killing himself. Well, maybe not killing. He was losing himself, and in the process he was losing everyone else.

Matt didn’t fight the end of Nelson and Murdock. He didn’t fight Foggy; didn’t stalk him or follow him like all Foggy’s knowledge of dark, broody, obsessive superheroes said he would.

He just let Foggy step out of his sights and then kept on wandering forward. Matt didn’t pretend that he wasn’t hurt, which Foggy was also surprised by. He’d been expected some kind of ‘everything is alright even though I’m breaking inside’ façade or drama that would end in some dramatic shouting spree in court or a coffee shop or whatever. But Matt wasn’t that kind of guy. He very gently smiled at Foggy if they were at court at the same time. Or if he passed him on the street, he would raise a hand to say hello before continuing on his way. They all felt brittle, those gestures. It was like watching a person wave to someone who didn’t know them. It was a little embarrassing, but mostly inexplicably chest-squeezing. Matt wasn’t pretending he wasn’t hurt, but he also wasn’t pretending that Foggy didn’t exist.

It was weird. It was awkward. It almost felt like Matt was smiling and waving at him to say, ‘its okay. I know you left and that hurts me, but its okay.’ And that made Foggy feel even more like shit. Because people left Matt’s life; they left Matt. It happened over and over, since he was a kid, and he had, in a brilliant kind of way, accepted that. Foggy could not conceptualize that. Foggy didn’t want most people to leave his life; he didn’t like the idea of his memory fading or his presence being negative to anyone. He wanted to leave a lasting influence on people—a good one. And yet here, with Matt, he couldn’t do that. And Matt was giving him express, polite, even fucking _compassionate_ permission to move on, and he knew, he _knew_ that Matt didn’t think negatively about him. Which is why it made no sense why waving back to Matt, helping Matt politely loosen their bonds, made him feel like he was the bad guy here. Somehow, it was his fault that Matt was quietly shuffling his way down the street. It was his fault that Matt was out smashing peoples’ bones every night.

And that’s when he asked himself about the manipulation. Because Matt was the one who lied here. He was the one who kept secrets and who put Foggy in danger. He was the one who didn’t show empathy when it was important to, and he was the one who made the choice, every night, to use his fists over his words. Matt was not a good person, not the way Foggy, and hell, the rest of the world, imagined good people. Foggy was not in the wrong for not trusting Matt and for not feeling safe around him. Matt could snap at any second; the line between Matt and the Devil was so, so fine. It was a thread: it was a hair. And honestly, Foggy was scared that he’d spent so much time with Matt while he was balancing on that thread.

So yeah. Matt had to know what he was doing. He wasn’t stupid. He had to know how this was affecting other people. But did he care? Not enough to stop.

So Foggy was kept up at night with these terrible thoughts.

‘who even is that guy?’

‘why did I trust him so much?’

 ‘how did he know just what to say to make me laugh?’

‘how did he figure out when to do it?’

‘what does he even want me for?’

They buzzed and hummed and buzzed and hummed in his head for hours until he fell unconscious.

And then the next day, there would be the Devil at court, nodding along as his client told him some thing or the other. The next day there would be Matt, hurrying out of the building, completely ignorant that he was dropping papers.

Foggy wondered if anyone else saw the bruises. He considered anonymously calling social services about a blind guy five blocks up who had bruises on his face for the last three weeks. They weren’t healing. They were shaped like knuckles.

He wondered if intervention by authorities would be good for Matt. He might be forced to go to therapy. He might be forced to lay low until his wounds healed. Or. What if. What if they decided that he couldn’t look after himself? What if they put him in a group home or something? Would that…be good?

Foggy tried to imagine a Matt without the Devil and realized that, now that he knew about the devil, he couldn’t imagine Matt without it. To put him in a group home and refuse him access to his outlet, well it seemed unfair. Not cruel. Unfair. Foggy couldn’t figure out why the word choice mattered, but it did.

He wouldn’t call social services, he decided. He wouldn’t do that to Matt. Even if they weren’t friends anymore, Matt deserved the humanity that he was trying to extend to Foggy in his little ‘its okay to leave’ gestures.

 

Foggy received a phone call from Karen of all people who told him that Frank Castle told her that the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen had been really quiet lately. As in, too quiet. Gone. People weren’t even talking about him. Deadpool (since when did Matt know _Deadpool??_ ) and Spiderman (what the actual fuck) hadn’t seen him around and were apparently concerned enough to approach Castle who lurked around Hell’s Kitchen for a bit in what apparently passed as a welfare-check among vigilantes/superheroes. Nothing. Castle didn’t know where Matt lived though, so the lack of the Devil did not necessarily mean a lack of Matthew Murdock. Foggy tried to think about the last time he saw Matt. It must have been a few days ago? He’d seen him at court for just a moment, but Matt hadn’t noticed him over the mountain of paperwork he was collecting while talking to his client.

He tried to remember if he’d seen any bruises on Matt’s face but got nowhere.

He glanced up and his eye caught on his phone. He could just call Matt. Just a quick ‘hey, got word through the grapevine that the Devil’s been real quiet lately. Just wanted to make sure you’re alive. Okay, great. Bye.’

It was the most obvious solution, and Foggy was not an unreasonable man when he didn’t have to be. He grabbed the phone, found Matt’s contact card—no longer in his top five contacts—and tapped the call button.

The phone rang several times before Matt’s voicemail picked up. Foggy swallowed thickly against the rising tide of anxiety as Matt’s voice thanked him for calling and asked the person to please leave their name and number and he would get back to them as soon as possible.

Foggy dialed again. The same voicemail. Again. Voicemail. He was starting to panic a little. He called again and waited until the voicemail finished.

“Heya Matt, it’s me, Foggy. I heard—I—Karen told me that—Apparently you haven’t been doing your thing recently and I—I just wanted to make sure you’re alright. Give me a call soon, okay? Thanks.”

Foggy pressed his phone into his forehead. Matt would be fine. He was always fine. He was an actual ninja. He was probably taking out the trash or something.

Foggy tried to put the thoughts out of his mind and tried on the TV to binge watch some shitty show until his breathing evened out. It didn’t really work. His mind was on the phone.

Matt had other superhero friends, he slowly realized. Deadpool and Spiderman. Those were big names. He knew that Matt was involved with others, Jessica Jones, Danny Rand, Luke Cage, but Matt never seemed terribly happy to be associated with them. These guys though? They were worried? _Deadpool_ was worried? Surely that meant that he was pretty close with them. Irrationally, Foggy felt angry at the thought that Matt was moving forward by embracing his whole superhero schtick. What, regular people weren’t good enough for him anymore?

Then he forced himself to breathe and thought that actually, no that makes a lot of sense. He had more in common with those guys; maybe Spidey could be a good influence on him with the whole non-lethal, chatty distraction thing. It made sense. It was a really good thing that he wasn’t alone. He tried to watch TV again, only checking his phone every five minutes as opposed to two.

He dozed a bit, watching a comedy sketch show until about 4pm and shook himself awake to do something productive like clean the kitchen. He finished the kitchen and was vacuuming the carpet when he remembered his phone. He leaned over the couch, vacuum still running, to grab it.

Nothing. It had been hours.

Was Matt not speaking to him? That didn’t make sense. He waved to him in the street and then ignored his calls?

He turned off the vacuum and dialed the number again. Voicemail. He tried again. Voicemail. Anxiety flooded through his chest, making his heart race and his hands shake. He tried again. Three rings.

“Hello?” Matt sounded like he’d just woken up and kind of stuffy like he was sick.

“Hey, it’s Foggy,” Foggy said, “did you get my message?”

“What?” He heard what sounded like Matt shuffling around through his sheets. “Oh, no. Sorry. I was asleep. I’ll listen to it now.”

Foggy was confused. Matt sounded weird. He slept? On a Saturday? Until 5? Without having gone out on a face-smashing spree?

“No, it’s alright. I just wanted to make sure you were alive. Karen mentioned that she hadn’t heard from you in a while.” Foggy’s heart squeezed a bit on ‘alive.’ He didn’t know if Matt could hear heartbeats over the phone.

“Oh, no. I’m fine. Thanks for calling. What time is it?” Foggy made this call to calm his heart, but every second Matt spoke, he felt the opposite happening.

“No problem. It’s—uh—5:13.” Matt hummed and Foggy heard him shuffle something around again.

“Okay, thanks. I’m gonna go back to sleep now. Tell Karen I’m sorry. Night.”

“Night,” Foggy said, his heart practically leaping in his jugular. Matt had slept until 5 and was going back to sleep. Matt. Who spent his days off at the gym, meditating, and being a disgusting-morning person with ridiculous morning habits like making pour-over coffee. That Matt. Was going _back to sleep_ and was probably not going to go out face-smashing that night.

He looked at the phone in his hand; its light had gone out while he was processing. He was scared. He didn’t know why he was scared, but he was fucking terrified. Something was wrong with Matt, really wrong, and he was no longer allowed to know what it was. And that was even scarier than not-being friends with Matt. He made an executive decision in his living room.

He called Claire. She picked up on the third ring.

“Claire, have you heard from Matt, lately?” he asked.

“No, not for a while. Which is amazing. Like, the best thing. That boy wants bendable ribs and the universe is trying to tell him no, but he won’t listen. Why?” Claire sounded like she was typing at while she talked to Foggy.

“Uh, no reason,” Foggy tried, not really sure of who else to talk to, but also hesitant to give out too much information.

“Okay, try again. Why?” Claire had stopped her typing. Her voice sounded more grounded. Foggy went with it.

“People haven’t heard from him in a while—super people.”

“What do you mean? You mean Team Red?” Foggy frowned.

“Who?”

“Team Red,” Claire repeated, “Matt, Spiderman, and Deadpool. He told me about them a while back, what he didn’t tell you?” Foggy swallowed.

“We haven’t talked much. Anyways, yeah—uh—Team Red hasn’t seen him, so they talked to Castle and Castle talked to Karen and Karen hadn’t heard from him either. So I wanted to know if you had,” he said. Claire’s pause was very judgmental.

“Why don’t you call him?” she said.

“I did.”

“And?”

“He said he was fine and that he was going back to sleep.”

“Okay? So? Mystery solved, right?”

“Claire, I’m sorry but he was going _back to sleep_. It’s 5 in the afternoon. Matt never sleeps past, like, 9—10 tops. 10 after a week of studying and a night of too many drinks. He’s—and he’s not doing his things with Team Red or whatever but he’s—he’s still going back to--?”

“Foggy, I need you to calm down,” Claire told him, “Matt is a grown-ass man who can take care of himself. So he slept in? Big deal. Guy’s been depressed. Its not unreasonable, I imagine you’re probably the same way. Leave him alone. He’ll get back to his dumbass self sooner or later.”

Foggy opened and closed his mouth a few times. He let out a big breath.

“Okay, Claire. I’ll try. Can you please just give him a call though? He sounded a little sick?” Claire grumbled a bit.

“Alright, I’ll call him. Stop worrying. There’s a flu going around. Wash your hands, btw. Half the girls at the hospital are out sick. Bye, Foggy.”

“Bye,” he said lamely. He ended the all and stared at his phone until the light turned off. This. This was the shit he was talking about. The manipulation. Matt didn’t even seem to be doing it on purpose, and yet here Foggy was, feeling like the bad guy. Like he was making a fuss about something which didn’t even exist. He gritted his teeth. The Devil made him do it, he was sure.

He put the vacuum away and turned the TV back on. He turned up the volume.

 

 

Foggy worked hard. No one at HC&B could complain. He was good at his job. He was well-liked. Almost even respected. Things were good.

Except that he was obsessing over Matt Murdock who his anxiety had convinced him was about to hurt himself or something equally stupid. He had valiantly held himself back from texting Claire to find out how her conversation with Matt had gone last night. 18 hours he had held himself back. Now, however, the thought was nagging at him as people started taking their lunches. He bit the bullet.

 **Me** : Hey Claire, hope everything’s okay. Just wondered if you were able to get ahold of our local idiot. I’m sorry for motherhenning?

Foggy had nearly finished lunch when his phone chirped.

 **CT:** hey, sorry for the wait. Yeah I called him, he says hes got the flu and is miserable. He is not dying. He’s mad at some rando in the courthouse who he thinks gave it to him.

 **Me:** Ah, thanks Claire. Sorry for bothering you.

 **CT:** No problem. I’ve gotta go back to work. We should get drinks soon. Let me know when ur free.

 **Me:** Will do.

Foggy put the phone down on his Done pile of papers. Matt was fine. Matt had the flu and was crabby and groggy, which is why people hadn’t heard from him in a week. That was understandable. He wasn’t manipulating Foggy, he was just sick and since his routines ran like clockwork, people just noticed his absence more than they would for anyone else. Everything was fine.

He resolved to leave the matter at that. He set back into the Gonzalez case.

 

 

Matt was not fine. He was not fine because it had been two weeks and Foggy and Karen and Claire had gotten drinks and they all noted that none of them had seen Matt for nearly a month. And it wasn’t funny. And it wasn’t endearing. And the mood definitely took a dive.

Claire said that Matt was a bit depressed, but he was always depressed and honestly he was probably clinically depressed at this point, so maybe he just didn’t have the energy to leave the house. Karen said that she’d been clinically depressed and totally understood. She apologized to Foggy and said it wasn’t his fault when she’d looked at his face and seen how stricken he felt. Claire agreed to this.

Foggy had had enough (emotions and liquor) and blurted out that he thought Matt was maybe manipulating him into feeling guilty, and the ladies had a think.

“I don’t know if Matt means to manipulate the people he knows,” Karen mused, stirring her half-finished drink with a straw. “According to Frank, at least, he’s not even much of a manipulator when he fights. Frank described him as a ‘take it as it is’ kind of guy.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen him fight a few times; he’s more likely to turn the lights off than he is to pit one guy against another,” Claire added.

“And that’s when he’s really pissed off,” Karen said, “I never felt like Matt was trying to get me to do one thing or another. He’s a terrible liar.”

“The worst,” Foggy agreed.

“I mean, it’s a miracle he had us fooled for as long as he did,” Karen continued.

“Then why do I feel like shit?” Foggy asked. Claire and Karen gave him the most pitying looks.

“Foggy, you miss him,” Karen told him. “He’s your best friend—”

“Was,” Foggy clarified.

“ _Is._ ” Karen told him with narrowed eyes.

“He’s got new friends—Team Red or whatever they’re called,” Foggy said.

Claire snorted.

“Yeah, real great friends. He fell through my window and kept going ‘I can’t believe how stupid they are, Claire. You wouldn’t believe it. They think that their shit plans actually work. They really believe that.’ I’d say he was bullied into joining and now he’s too committed to leave.” Karen giggled.

Foggy didn’t know what to do with this information. Well, he could believe it since Matt rarely made friends on his own volition. It kind of made sense that those other two would adopt him into their group and then given what he knew about Deadpool, there probably wasn’t a clear way out. Or a safe one if Foggy was being truly honest. He sighed and put his head in his hands.

“You’re right. This is shit. I feel like shit. I still am his best friend. Fuck. Ugh. No. He probably knows doesn’t he? He’s been giving me. Ugh. Space. Fuck.” He heard the girls laugh. “Guys, Matt can’t be the reasonable one here, that’s not how this works. The world is ending.” They continued to laugh.

“Go see him,” Karen said, poking him in the ear. “You don’t have to apologize; you’re not wrong that he’s been an idiot. But you two are making yourselves miserable. Also, I want to know why he’s not daredevil-ing.” Claire smiled and nodded in agreement.

 

 

Which is how Foggy found himself pounding on Matt’s door that Saturday at 3pm. He factored in depression sleep to this time; he was being thoughtful. No answer.

“Try again,” a voice said from beside him. He leapt two feet in the air and almost smacked the owner before he realized it was a kid. A kid? Brown hair, brown eyes, couple inches shorter than Foggy. Staring right back up at him.

“Hi,” Foggy said.

“Hi. You should try again,” the kid said. Like this was some kind of experiment.

“Do you? Know Matt?” He asked and almost immediately regretted it. What if this kid was some kind of mafia mole??? Did he just kill Matt with the kid mafia??

“Oh. His name’s Matt. Well that’s boring. I was hoping for like an Estefan, but whatever. Anyways, you should knock again. He’s ignoring me.”

What. The fuck.

“ _Who are you?”_ he tried, arm raised to knock again.

But the door was ripped open. And there was Matt looking like fried shit and shirtless? Foggy decided to just let this day be shit.

“What. Are. You. Doing. Here.” Matt snarled at the kid. This child was unfazed.

“Hi, Matt! That’s your name right? That’s not a bad name you look like a Matt. Also, wow, you’ve really um, got the body thing down. You’re good at the face thing too. Hey, how do you get them to look like—”

“Get inside.” Matt snarled, “ _Now.”_ The kid ducked under his arm into the living room.

Foggy was more than slightly convinced Matt was going to kill this child.

“Hey buddy, um. Can I come in too?” he asked. Matt’s face went slack. He reached a hand out and very, very gently touched Foggy’s cheek which was weird. He’d never done that before. Foggy noticed that the bruising around Matt’s eyes was mostly gone. He didn’t have any open wounds on his torso either. He had some gray and yellow tinges to the areas around his lower ribs, but he actually looked. Really good. Which was saying something, especially for Matt.

“Foggy?” Matt asked softly.

“Yeah, hi. Um, I talked to Claire and Karen. Matt,” He looked into Matt’s face, he wasn’t wearing glasses and was staring at Foggy’s left cheek. He swallowed like he was trying really hard not to cry, but Foggy saw no tell-tale quivering, “Matty, we need to talk.”

Matt turned his head away from Foggy for a minute and swallowed hard a few times. He nodded a little. Foggy’s stomach dropped to see a little bit of quivering around his eyes and mouth, but Matt took a deep breath and collected himself.

“Yeah, no. You’re right. Foggy I’m—”

“Double D? You have like no furniture. Did you know that?” The kid piped up from the living room. Matt swivelled his head in that direction with one of the nastiest looks Foggy had ever seen grace his face. He was impressed and also more than a little taken off guard. He couldn’t help but laugh at Matt’s obvious frustration.

“I am so sorry, Foggy,” Matt told him, “I—I—No, we definitely can talk. Let me. I’ve gotta—let me handle this thing and then I pr—I _promise_ we’ll talk. I mean it—”

“Aw, Double D. You’ve got a stutter. Don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s really cute. Even though you still have no furniture. I can find you some stuff if you want—”

“ _Matt, who is this kid?_ ” Foggy whispered. Matt turned his face heavenward.

“I’m sorry—just, just come in.” Foggy complied and walked in to see that said kid was leaning on the window sill, staring out at the billboard. He turned around to watch Matt storm past to his room to grab a shirt. The kid looked at Foggy and waved a bit. Foggy waved back confused.

“Hi!” the kid said again, “Are you Double D’s friend?” Foggy opened his mouth to answer but then realized he didn’t actually know. Luckily, Matt beat him to it.

“I have no friends. I am the night. What. Do. You. Want.”

The kid leaned back against the sill and narrowed his eyes.

“Two things. One. You don’t get to be an asshole when you break into my school and terrify my people. Bomb threat or whatever. Pull that shit again and, well, I don’t know what I’ll do but I won’t like it and you won’t like it. Two. You disappeared for like a month, didn’t answer your phone, didn’t answer your email, and didn’t even send some poor chump to let us know where you were. You’re lucky it’s me who came ‘cause DP was 100% ready to break down your door. He’s the one who found your place, by the way. Not me. So I’m here to confirm that you’re not cat food and to let you know that next time, you need to answer the group text. It’s _important._ That’s how teams work.” Matt narrowed his eyes and made a really good effort to glare right at the center of the kid’s face.

“Okay, my turn. One. Your people almost died. It had nothing to do with you, I didn’t even know that was your school. Two. I _am not part of your fucking team._ I don’t _do_ teams. I don’t know how many ways to tell you two to get that through your heads. And three. Peter, I am blind. I am blind and you and DP send a _million_ texts and most of them aren’t even words. I cannot spend my entire day listening to text messages. I turn off your messages because it grates on every other sense I have to hear them again. And again. And again. Do I make myself clear?”

Foggy was shocked to hear Matt curse. He never used that tone with Foggy, even was he was furious. The impulsive part of his brain immediately started wondering if Matt was passing into more than 50% Devil territory. He glanced at the kid to take in his shocked expression too and was not disappointed.

“You’re blind? Like for realsies?” Peter asked.

“Like for realsies,” Matt gritted out.

“Oh. I—uh yeah. That seems kind of shitty now. Sorry for sending so many messages. But how do you? Is it the hearing thing?”

“Yes it’s a hearing thing, it’s an everything thing, it’s an I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it thing.” Matt was slowly turning a shade of red that made Foggy want to make him sit down. Matt, however, wanted to have a crazy staring (what) context with a teenager.

“Okay, sorry, we won’t talk about it. Sorry I brought it up. But,” the kid looks away, and sighs. He grumbles something. Matt did not sense the kid look away and kept glaring. Foggy coughed lightly and he dialed it back. Foggy paused to evaluate that. He’d always thought that the power balance was skewed towards Matt in their relationship. Hence the whole manipulation thing; but that? That right there? Foggy wondered how far he could take that.

“Peter,” Matt tried again, sounding less like snarl and more like his usual grumpy self with an added layer of sick, “Peter, it’s not that I don’t want to be part of the team. I am just—I j—I just can’t do teams. Teams mean responsibility.” Matt dropped his head, swallowed hard, and scrubbed the back of his neck.

“Peter, I’m not in a good place right now.” Peter snapped his head up.

“You don’t have to be in a good place,” his voice cracked and Foggy’s heart did a little too. “We don’t care if you’re in a bad place, Double D, I mean DP’s in a bad place like all the time. I’m not really,” oh god the kid’s voice hitched and wobbled, “I’m pretty fucked up right now too. And I’m scared. My people are always in trouble because of me. My aunt cried all night after the bomb thing. Since I told her about Spiderman she’s been even more scared and she cries so much and she keeps--And I don’t know what to do because DP’s all—he’s not—he’s messed up and you’re messed up and Mr. Stark’s messed up—and you and Wade are the only ones I can talk to about this --”

Peter could barely talk. He kept choking on the words. He whirled towards the window and scrubbed furiously at his face with the sleeves of his hoodie; he tried to use them to muffle his sobs too. Foggy stared at Matt to keep himself from sobbing with the kid. He didn’t know what was going on, but he was starting to get the feeling that the terrible shit that he and Matt were going through was a common problem in the superhero world. It was surprisingly liberating to feel like he wasn’t alone in this and Matt wasn’t alone in it. He hadn’t realized how heavy that weight was. But even more important than all that, this poor, sobbing teenager had done what Foggy had been trying to do for ten years: Matthew Michael Murdock had just recognized that he was fucked up and that was a sign either of the existence of God or the apocalypse, and at that point Foggy didn’t care which because fuck.

Matt scrubbed at his face with both hands and let out a bone-weary sigh. He sounded exhausted. He sounded sick and tired. Foggy wanted him to sit down and he wanted Peter to stop crying; with all his heart he wanted that kid to stop crying. He moved to get up to give him a hug, but aborted the gesture when Matt reached out to feel for the edge of the couch. He laid his hand on top of one of the ones that Foggy placed there when the kid started sobbing. Matt looked up into his face, settling around his forehead.

“Foggy, I am so sorry.” He said thickly. “I thought that maybe it was just me with this, but,” he cut himself off with a watery laugh and didn’t finish. Foggy understood though.

“It’s okay,” he told him, “it’s gonna be okay.” And for fucking once, in nearly a year, it felt like it might be. Matt’s face wobbled a little and he sat down, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Foggy never wanted to see Matt cry, but he did feel gratified that these were happy tears.

“Yeah,” Matt hiccupped softly. He sniffed hard and then groaned. “Foggy, I’m so sorry, but everything happening right now is really gross. Can you—”

Foggy barked out a laugh and grabbed the box of Kleenex from the counter. He took one for himself and watched Matt mop himself up before calling a small, hoarse, “hey” in Peter’s direction. Peter made a gesture of acknowledgement, but was otherwise caught up in trying to calm himself down.

“Hey,” Matt tried again. “Peter.” No response.

“Spiderman,” he said with a wobbly smile. Peter cried harder. He was listening though.

“Come here,” Matt told him, “I’d come get you, but you know. Can’t see where you are.”

“You’re s-s-so f-full of shit,” Peter hiccupped out. Matt leaned back a bit and opened his arms in a gesture which Foggy recognized as the “hug me, I have more feelings than I can contain” one. Peter hurled himself across the room and squirmed into Matt’s arms and sobbed even harder into his neck. Matt hugged the kid hard without wincing and rubbed wide circles into his back. He was saying something lowly. It took Foggy a moment to realize that he was repeating what he had just told him, ‘it’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay.’

He wondered how many times Captain America told that to Bucky Barnes last year. He wondered how many times he was going to tell that to Matt in the coming months. However many times it took, he guessed. Peter was calming down in Matt’s lap and allowed Matt to force tissues into his hand with instructions to ‘blow.’ Peter was doing a valiant job through Matt’s noogie. Kid had a good laugh.

 

 

Foggy stepped out for some air while Matt talked to Peter. He was exhausted. Matt was exhausting. The kid was exhausting. The huge man in black and red in the stairwell was terrifying. Foggy was pretty sure that was Deadpool, but whatever he needed cold drinks from the grocery at the top of the street.

He stood under an awning to get some shade from the sun and texted Claire and Karen.

 **Me** : So, it’s not perfect. But I think we’re gonna be okay.

 **CT** : oh thank jesus

 **KP** : that’s amazing news

 **CT:** Did anyone die are there any open wounds

 **Me:** way to be optimistic there, Claire.

 **Me** : no wounds. But. I definitely just met spiderman.

 **KP** : WHAT

 **Me** : I think matt is his new big brother?

 **KP** : WHAT

 **KP** : MATT

 **KP** : THAT IS SO FUCJING CUTE

 **CT** : WHAT

 **Me** : you can harass him all you want in a bit but get this: matt.

 **Me** : matthew Murdock

 **Me** : gave spiderman a hug

 **Me** : without prompting

 **CT** : You lying sack of shit how dare you

 **KP** : lol Claire. oh my god tho that is precious

 **CT** : that’s an imposter you need to scan for bugs

 **Me** : ahahahaha matt is not an imposter spy

 **CT** : no he’s a lying liar who lies. Which is something spies do.

 **Me** : he’s got the flu

 **CT** : spies get the flu

He smiled and put the phone back in his pocket and went to buy the drinks. He’d just counted out exact change when he felt the phone buzz several times. He took the plastic bag and paused in front of the exit to read the text before he went back into the sun.

 **MM:** FOGGY HE FELL ASLEEP

 **MM** : FOGGY WHAT DO I DO

 **MM** : HELP

 **MM** : WHAT THE FUCK DP’S IN THE STAIRWELL

 **MM** : WAS HE THERE WHEN YIU LEFT

 **MM** : FOGGY HE CALLED ME PRETTY AND TOOK PETER

 **MM** : I CANT FIGHT HIM

 **MM** : HALP

 **Me** : I’m omw back rn Matty. I think it’s gonna be fine

 **MM** : OKAY IM TRUSTING YOU

 

 

 


End file.
